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aggadah

(or “haggadah,”possibly from Heb huggad,“things said” or “what is
told”) the nonlegal portions of the Talmud and Midrash (see halakhah). Aggadah is
concerned with explicating the meaning of Scripture in the moral sense, and with
elaborating on the stories in the Bible. As such it is more akin to preaching than to legal
analysis, and many aggadic collections are homiletical in character. The legal sections,
halakhah, are concerned with understanding the obligations placed on the believer
by the biblical text; aggadah, by contrast, contains ethical teaching as well as
illustrative narrative, prayers, legends, and folklore.